All you young kids with your vidja games nowadays playing your Portal 2: Black Ops, Super Street Fighter IV: U.S. Navy Seals, and Fuck, Death, Kill: Unnecessary Violence and No Characters need to get off my lawn and let me take you back to the days of the Sony Playstation JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Game). In my opinion, the original Playstation gave the world the best single-player JRPGs of all time. It was the first system to use CDs well and as such gave a player the chance to enter a whole new world for over a full work week. These games gave you at minimum 40 hours of play time in your first attempt after an era of Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. Continue reading →
As Android becomes more and more popular, people are increasingly looking for advice on which phones to buy, which apps to download, and what settings to use to optimize their Android experience. Lucky for you guys, I’m here to help. I’ve had my Android phone (a Verizon Droid Incredible) for almost a year now, and I’ve done just about everything you can do to one.
Look at your steering wheel. Now look down. Look back up. Your steering wheel is now this thing.
I’m using an old-ass clichéd joke.
This is an Formula 1 steering wheel. It’s used to speak to the pits, adjust break bias, activate turbo boost (I am not kidding), move parts of the car around, even get you a drink. Like almost everything else on an F1 car, it is made of carbon fiber, and is ridiculously expensive. Why carbon fiber? Because it’s light, and absorbs impacts extremely well. The steering wheel has to be able to be removed in five seconds in case of a crash, since the seating area on this thing is so tight, you can’t get in and out with the steering wheel in place.
Here’s an Italian guy explaining how the steering wheel for last year’s Ferrari worked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6HFvF-QfTo
Now: all that stuff he said about how KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) isn’t in place anymore, and that makes the wheel easier to deal with? That’s no longer true. KERS is back in this year, in an effort to have more overtaking on the track. Just like in your wimpy Prius, it takes energy released under breaking, and charges a battery with it. That battery can then be accessed to provide 80 more horsepower. You can use it all at once, or gradually over a lap, but once the battery is drained, you have to wait until the next lap to use it again. It was tried in 2009 to extremely mixed results. Ferrari won the Belgian Grand Prix with it, but it also caused a fire in Red Bull’s factory, and shocked a mechanic for BMW Sauber. Bernie Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder for F1 believes that F1 isn’t more massively popular worldwide because there’s not enough passing. That’s a little like saying that soccer (or football, for those of you who actually watch it) isn’t more popular because the total score isn’t higher. As a result, KERS is back in, as is the button that enables it, and the display that shows how much charge you have left.
Also added this year is a moveable rear wing. The button for this opens a flap on the rear wing that stalls it out, reducing downforce, and increasing your straight line speed. This can only be used if you are within one second of the car in front of you, and if you deploy it, the car in front of you cannot. In the first race of the season, no one successfully employed this option to pass anyone, but a few people used it to spin out on turns. So, mission accomplished!
Last year, McLaren employed a genius system to gain more speed on straights. They installed an air intake port in the cockpit that the driver could block with their knee. When blocked, air traveled over the car normally. When opened, air bypassed the rear wing, reducing downforce. Like every genius interpretation of the rules of car construction, this was kept secret until the first race, and then every other manufacturer simultaneously complained it was a breach of the rules, and came up with their own. Ferrari’s required the driver to activate it with his hand, which became a safety issue. While barreling down the track at almost 200 miles per hour, the driver had to take one hand off the steering wheel. This year, drivers are making the same complaint about the steering wheel itself.
There’s so much going on with this year’s wheel, drivers feel they are close to becoming too difficult to operate. Nick Heidfeld feels that the wheels have reached a saturation point, and the fuck up levels are extremely high, while Fernando Alonso thinks that he needs to stop being a pussy.
The argument could be made that if everyone has the same access to KERS, then the average speed of all cars would increase, leveling the field and defeating the purpose. Also, the argument could be made that Sebastian Vettel smoked everyone in Australia without even having KERS installed on his car (this is actually true).
Here’s a link to a detailed explanation on what each button did on BMW’s 2009 wheel. There was no KERS button, because after they shocked a guy, BMW decided not to run it.
Also, here’s another video, this one in English and from Lotus, explaining how their wheel works.
Have you noticed lately that your Netflix (or Redbox, Blockbuster, etc.) movies aren’t as feature packed as they used to be? The movie studio overlords had a problem, the rental houses only have to buy a disc once and then they can send it to hundreds or thousands of people. The studio oligarchy would much rather that individuals pay $30 each for individual copies of those movies. A new plan was needed.
Enter the “movie only” copies of DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Let us take the money making machine that is Twilight Eclipse as an example.
Your kids already forced you to take them to see it in the theater for $12 a pop plus snacks. Now the whole point of getting the DVD or Blu-ray is to watch the special features, so they put it on their Christmas wish list. Grandma goes to Best Buy and gets them the only copy they have left, the single disc DVD. The back of the box doesn’t list any features, but granny doesn’t know anything about the schemes of movie studios.
Your kid and her friends just want to watch the commentary where the pale face Brit tells what it was like to make out with Miss Dead Eyes. But it’s not there. So, you march down to return the stupid thing (open box returns are fun) and you are presented with a well stocked after holiday shelf where you find the following:
1. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Two-Disc Special Edition) DVD
2. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Single-Disc Edition) DVD
3. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray on a flip disc
4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Single-Disc Edition) Blu-ray
Can you guess which one has special features, or which features each one has? If you said number 1 and 3 you’re win a prize (that being the ability to hear Miss Dead Eyes attempt to emote). Further, can you guess which are the only ones the studios will sell to the rental companies?
This leaves only one question. What took them so long?
When my wife told me she wanted a turntable for Christmas I knew this was going to be one of those gifts that I would enjoy just as much as she does. When it came time to pick a turntable though I was confronted with a broad range of prices and products for what is a metal platter that spins a piece vinyl around in a circle. I immediately decided that I had no use for a $2000 turntable. Fortunately there were many in the $80 to $300 range from reputable companies that have made turntables for decades.
Another feature that I didn’t need was the built in ability to transfer to a computer, though an astute reader will notice by the name of the review I ended up with that anyway. I did want a built in phono pre-amp though since my receiver does not have a pre-amp and I didn’t want yet another component in the entertainment center.
It was Chris who suggested that I look at the Music Hall USB-1. The price was in the range I was looking at, it had a nice look to it and it included all of the features I wanted. It also had positive reviews online so I decided to go for it.
It’s available on Amazon Prime (free 2 day shipping for Prime members) for $249.
We unboxed it immediately on Christmas day since I wasn’t about to have that thing sit unopened. Unfortunately we were at the mother-in-law’s so I had to improvise a hookup to her Sony soundbar setup. The turntable comes in a couple easy to assemble pieces and includes an Audio Technica AT3600L moving-magnet cartridge which locks easily into the tone arm.
The box includes a short RCA style stereo cable pair, USB cable and software for transferring music to a computer (which I haven’t used). The power cord is a standard 110V, two prong, polarized cord which is permanently affixed to the unit.
When we were able to get the unit home and I had time to hook it up I replaced the included RCA cables with longer gold tipped ones since I needed more reach and had an extra set in a drawer. The turntable is hooked up to a Pioneer VSX-9040THX receiver. The back of the turntable has a selector switch for sending the signal without modification or sending the signal through the built in pre-amp.
Aside from the receiver not having a pre-amp another bit of the past that is gone from the home entertainment center is the clearance necessary in a cabinet to lift the dust cover. For this reason I had to install the turntable on a stand next to the main entertainment center. Fortunately the table was already there and being used for a phone and photo albums. The photographs were replaced with the phonograph.
The first test album was Pet Sounds in mono. My brain uses Sloop John B as a reference song for everything so this was handy.
The album is mono and goes to a stereo input so it plays only through the two main front speakers. Setting a playback mode on the receiver will force it through the center channel as well, though this should be done with caution since it can add sound effects that are undesirable. The turntable spins up quickly after the power switch is set to on and the start/stop button is pressed.
The sound quality is was great and the unit has a nice fluid operation to all of the functions. The second test album was Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast. This album was used but in nice condition. Additionally it was recorded in stereo and has a nice range. You really can’t go wrong with Bruce Dickinson either. The sound reproduction was outstanding. The output level is a little lower than some of my other components so the listening level is a bit higher than for the TiVo. The other thing that becomes immediately apparent is that these albums were released before the Loudness War.
The third test album was Abbey Road which sounded the best of all three. The sound was quit rich and carried nicely throughout the house.
We have purchased a few more modern albums since and await their arrival.
The most patented device is the US is the mousetrap, but I’m sure number two is the alarm clock.
Science has long promised us a graceful awakening based on our own body rhythms giving us a nice way to start the day. Instead we have been given alarm clocks that are loud, alarm clocks that run awy from us, ones that play only music you don’t like, ones that donate money to causes you hate for every minute you stay in bed. This kind of stick instead of carrot system has gone on far too long.
Now you can finally have a gentle marriage of technology and body rhythm to get your lazy ass out of bed. WakeMate.
The website even lets you track your sleep paterns so you can obsessively search WebMD for sleep disorders that you have diagnosed yourself with. Now wake up, fall out of bed, drag a comb across your head and get some coffee so you can really wake up.
Zatz Not Funny brings us good news on the DRM laden e-Books being distributed by public libraries. Previously they were limited to devices that support Adobe’s digital rights management, but the Bluefire Reader now allows Apple i-Devices to read the free (as in beer not as in freedom) e-books. Support your public library.
Your kids already forced you to take them to see it in the theater for $12 a pop plus snacks. Now the whole point of getting the DVD or Blu-ray is to watch the special features, so they put it on their Christmas wish list. Grandma goes to Best Buy and gets them the only copy they have left, the single disc DVD. The back of the box doesn’t list any features, but granny doesn’t know anything about the schemes of movie studios.
though since my receiver does not have a pre-amp and I didn’t want yet another component in the entertainment center.
(free 2 day shipping for Prime members) for $249.